Evans gives new Morse best shot

Shaun Evans has said he feels ITV series Endeavour was able to take on Inspector Morse because they worked so hard on making it a great show in itself.

The actor plays a younger version of the classic TV detective in the series about his early days with the police and said it had been a big consideration to take on such a well-loved character.

He said: "If you're going to tell this kind of story then you have to try and make it the best that it can be, otherwise there's not really a point in doing it.

"I would hesitate to begin to analyse what has made it popular this far - I'm sure that [the original Inspector Morse series] contributes to it. But I think it also shows that there's an intelligent audience out there who want interesting stories, really well told. That's my theory."

Shaun also spoke about the shift that viewers saw at the beginning of series two between his character DC Endeavour Morse and his mentor DI Fred Thursday (Roger Allam), and their attitudes to the police force.

He explained: "We get to see a kind of reversal in the whole thing and at the beginning you think the Endeavour character is not sure if he wants to be working for the police any more.

"Then by the end of it, Thursday is questioning his relationship to the police force and the work and thinking that maybe he'll get out of the force."

Series two of Endeavour is out now on DVD from ITV Studios Home Entertainment.